


Growing Pains

by Arsenic



Category: The Turner Series - Cat Sebastian
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22593874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: With Simon getting older, Georgie thinks it's time to take a step back.
Relationships: Lawrence Browne/Georgie Turner
Comments: 17
Kudos: 49
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



> Dear giftee, I hope this hits the spot, I really enjoyed the chance to write in this fandom and with these three.
> 
> Thanks to [redacted, you know who you are] for help with brainstorming and cleaning things up.

The summer Simon comes home a fresh thirteen, he’s grown. Not that he wasn’t growing before, but it was a boy’s growth. In the space between Christmas and the first blush of June, Simon has suddenly shot up to where his head clears Georgie’s chin. And his voice squeaks alarmingly, right before it falls into a range reserved for men, and then settles again into the boyish ring it won’t have for much longer.

In short, the thing that Georgie has been avoiding even considering has come to pass: Simon cannot be thought of entirely as a child anymore.

And while it was only mildly acceptable to have Georgie as an influence in the boy’s life until now, it’s…it could be downright detrimental for Simon to learn behaviors he will need for surviving society from Georgie. Georgie’s manners are excellent forgeries, but that is all they are. No, as odd and retiring as Lawrence is, he is still an Earl, and he was still raised as an aristocrat. 

Georgie has never understood, not until Lawrence and Simon, the concept of letting go of something you love in order that it may thrive. He does now. Simon will have enough to contend with given the Radnor reputation without rumors about his father’s man of business. No, going forward, Georgie will have to make certain that a strong surface of propriety is maintained whenever Simon or any of his agemates are around.

If the thought makes him wish he could walk into the sea off of Penkellis’ shore, well. He’ll do that before he’ll let anything harm Simon or Lawrence.

* * *

When he realizes what is happening, Lawrence thinks that, really, he should have noticed earlier. It’s simply that he has gotten complacent. Georgie has been understanding and giving and _patient_ with him for nearly seven years, and Lawrence has forgotten that there was always an expiry date on that behavior, a time when Georgie would yearn for the color and movement and pulse of London. When Georgie would want a fellow who smiles as easily as he does, who leaves his home without hesitation, who…who is not Lawrence.

The summer after Simon’s thirteenth birthday appears to be the point at which Georgie begins yearning for something more flashy than a moldering castle by the sea. He takes to spending less time with them than ever, to seeing more to Lawrence’s business, as if there has been a sudden uptick.

Lawrence has promised himself, from the very beginning, that when this moment came he would not hold Georgie back. He would, in fact, make certain Georgie could be safe and well-fed and happy without having to resort to his previous profession. It is why he has put Georgie’s name on his last two patents. Until now Georgie has had no separate accounts from him, but he has kept immaculate books, and it is easy enough to look and see what the royalties from those two have been.

It is less easy to force himself into town, into the bank, and set up an account for those royalties, but it’s not the first time he’s made sacrifices for Georgie. He would prefer it not be the last. Lawrence has preferred that many things not come to pass. His preferences have only rarely mattered.

* * *

Simon’s father and da are being stupid. He’s not sure as to the why of it. At Christmas, everything was as it has been all these years, but now that the trees have leaves on them, all of a sudden it is as if they’ve forgotten each other’s languages. (Simon will grant that both of them speak somewhat unusual languages. That’s never been an issue before, now, though, so he fails to see why it should suddenly present such an obstacle.)

In the mornings, Georgie is always busy with some type of correspondence, instead of meeting them for breakfast after their ride. In the afternoons, when the three of them would usually perform some experiment together, or play a game, Georgie has errands to run, or a drafting to oversee, or…or something. As though he is avoiding them. 

Simon would wonder if he’s done something wrong, only he knows Georgie is making certain Simon’s favorite foods are about, and is otherwise making sure the house runs to Simon’s needs, which is not, and never has been, necessary. Also, he’d hugged Simon so tightly upon Simon’s arrival it had come near to hurting.

It comes to Simon, in his second week there, when his father is starting to appear harried and exhausted, and Georgie’s something of a ghost, that if Simon is not the _problem_ , it’s likely he can be the solution.

* * *

Lawrence is reading one of the most recent articles from Cambridge on power generation when Mrs. Ferris pokes her head in and asks, “Have you seen Simon, sir?”

“Not recently. We rode this morning and ate breakfast and then he wanted to do some exploring. He knows he’s forbidden to go to the shore. Has he not appeared for supper?”

“Nor any type of snack,” she says. “And Mr. Turner has not seen him either.”

Lawrence takes a slow breath, trying not to let the anxiety that often rules when something in his life is thrown even slightly out of its regular pattern overcome him. He’s reminding himself that boys will be boys and there are roughly a million places in Penkellis for Simon to have curled up in, finding worms or something equally mundane to poke about, when Georgie appears at the door, all the calm he’s been wearing like a tailored suit knocked away, skin pale and eyes fever-bright. “Simon’s missing. I’ve checked all his usual spots and he’s not—I can’t—”

Lawrence stands, something in Georgie’s fear lending him the tiny spark of calm he needs. “Mrs. Ferris, please have one of the stable boys ride the grounds, you and Janet will be in charge of searching Penkellis proper, Mr. Turner and I shall go toward the coast.”

Georgie’s paleness takes on a green tint at that, but he does not argue. Rather, he says, “I’ll grab some blankets, in case he’s…taken a chill.”

It takes him mere moments, and then they are on their way.

* * *

“We’re almost certainly fretting over nothing,” Georgie makes himself say, because Simon is Lawrence’s child. It is Lawrence who needs someone to stay calm and confident, Georgie is the hired help, for goodness’ sake.

“We are fretting over our damned child, and even if you’ve gotten over this place and me, I’ll thank you not to be just another person to leave Simon behind.”

Georgie stumbles over a rock, and in trying to right himself, trips himself on his feet, and it is only because Lawrence catches him mid-tumble that he doesn’t end up a dusty heap in the road. He clings to the blankets as if they are the only thing keeping him standing and asks, “I—what? Over you?”

“We haven’t the time just now for you to act as though you haven’t had your mind halfway back to London since the weather turned.”

“I—” Georgie blinks. “London?”

Lawrence looks down, seemingly checking that Georgie is steady on his feet, huffs, and turns to keep striding toward the shore. Georgie follows, needing a quicker gait to match Lawrence’s longer steps. He bites out, “You’re wrong.”

“Oh, I am?”

“Of course you—It is perilous enough for the two of us to do as we do, out here, two adults who fully understand and accept the consequences for what we have. Simon’s family reputation will follow him to school to university to— Bloody Christ, Lawrence, I just want him to be safe from my past, from the rumors of our association. You—you don’t _care_ what society believes and you have a title which allows that, but until that title passes to Simon, and unless he should decide to live full time in Cornwall, he does not have that luxury.”

They’re close enough to the shore that Georgie can hear the waves hitting. Normally, he enjoys the sound, but at the moment it’s grating on the few nerves he’s maintaining. Lawrence is frowning at him in a way Georgie cannot read. He sighs. “Let’s just…let’s find Simon.”

* * *

They find Simon in the first cove they search, not so much out of luck, but because Georgie says, “If he’s being mischievous on purpose, he’ll be at the cove where you first explained how pearls are made to him.”

Lawrence says quietly, “That is also the cove where you taught him how to make sandcastles.”

“Yes,” Georgie agrees, no trace of any emotion on his face, and keeps moving. The cove is not far, and Simon is not hiding, nor is he damp.

He is curled up in a ball looking all-too-small. Lawrence sometimes forgets just how little Simon is. He no longer attempts to make himself disappear, has learned to laugh at full volume, to make his ideas known. Now, though, he is reminiscent of the child who showed up at his doorway with nowhere to go, the child Georgie insisted on keeping, on making Lawrence see to.

Despite the fact that it will mean trying to get sand from his hair for days and Mrs. Ferris will scold him something terrible regarding the laundry, Lawrence sits down next to Simon and pulls his son into his side. Georgie takes the other side.

Just loud enough to be heard over the waves, Simon asks, “Are you leaving, da?”

Georgie laughs, a small, choked sound. “I should. If I really wanted what was best for you, I’d—” He shakes his head. “But I…I barely know what morning looks like without the two of you anymore. I wouldn’t know how to put one foot in front of the other.”

“Why would you—my mother died. My father and my uncle were kept from me for years. I—”

“Your uncle reformed himself specifically so as to be allowed in your life,” Georgie tells him. “There is no reformation for men of my class, only—only the dignity of invisibility, I suppose.”

Lawrence was a spare for so long, able to go about and move in circles that would have been much harder to navigate with a title around his neck. But it is times like these he remembers the breadth of space between the nobility and everyone else, let alone the lower classes. Georgie is not incorrect, and Lawrence recognizes that. It is merely that he does not and cannot care. He says, “I am an earl. And Simon is my heir. Let them come, Georgie.”

Simon straightens up a bit at these words. “I am Courtenay’s heir as well.”

And while Simon does not know it, he is heir to the majority of the Standish and Medlock fortunes. At the height of his inheritance, it will be nearly as hard to touch Simon as it is a duke or a prince. Georgie does know these facts. Lawrence can see him mulling them over, chewing quite fiercely at his bottom lip. Lawrence shall have to kiss it better tonight, when they have set this all aright. He knows now that they will, that Georgie will listen to them.

“You are the mad Earl of Radnor.”

“Whose papers have been published by the Royal Society and who has been invited to speak a good dozen times at Oxford. There are plenty to speak up for me, you’ve made certain of it in your efforts to clarify I’m studious, not crazed.”

Georgie looks down at his lap. “You—you truly believe there would be no harm in…gossip.”

“Mr. Medlock says that gossip is for small minds,” Simon says.

“Mr. Medlock uses gossip more lethally than he shoots,” Georgie rebuts. 

Lawrence laughs, as both assertions are true, and not mutually exclusive. “I believe we can overcome whatever harm there might be. For this. For us. This family.”

After a long moment, Georgie moves his hand to cover Lawrence’s, their arms behind Simon’s back. “As we’re all already filthy, perhaps we should make a sandcastle before returning. To make having our ears boxed by Mrs. Ferris worth it.”

Simon knocks his shoulder into Georgie’s, and looks over at Lawrence. Lawrence squeezes Georgie’s hand. “Seems only practical, in this instance.”

Simon makes a pleased noise and scrambles up. Georgie squeezes back before going to follow.


End file.
